All That Fills Us

Book excerpt: Mel Ellis knows that her eating disorder is ruining her life. Everyone tells her rehab is her best option, but she can't bring herself to go. Broken and empty in more ways than one, Mel makes one last-ditch effort to make hers a story worth telling. She will walk her own road to recovery along the lesser-known trails of the North American wilderness. Though she is physically and mentally unprepared to face the difficulties that lay ahead, she sets off on foot from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and heads toward Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State. During the long journey, she meets strangers with their own stories, as well as ghosts from her past who can no longer be ignored. But though the land she travels threatens her success at every turn, it's her own dark thoughts she'll have to overcome in order to find peace in the life and the body she has been given. With pitch-perfect timing and delightfully witty self-awareness, debut author Autumn Lytle masterfully leads readers on a journey down the hard path toward healing. *** "All That Fills Us is a compelling drama of the complex battle with the debilitating longing for perfection as enacted through a severe eating disorder. Told in an equally raw and wry first-person narration, this tale bears powerful witness to how the individual's quest for wellness is necessary groundwork for collective healing."--Booklist "Lytle draws on her own experience with eating disorders to take readers inside Mel's mind and misguided thinking about her own worth and health."--Library Journal